The architecture of humanism; a study in the history of taste

208 THE ARCHITECTURE OFHUMANISM

tionsofthehumanbody,whichartists

like

Leonardo

(followingVitruvius)soughttodescribewithinacircle

and
a square, are

not most beautiful when

they

can be exactly related to those figures. It was

realised that

'

proportion

*

is a formofbeauty

: it

wasrealised that

'

proportion

'

is a

mode

ofmathe-

matics. Butit wasnot realised that thewordhas

adifferentbearinginthetwocases. Criticismis
not

called upon to invent an aesthetic for disembodied

minds,buttoexplainthepreferenceswhichwe(whose

minds are not disembodied) do actually possess.

Our

aesthetic taste is

partly physical

;

and, while

mathematical

'

proportion

'

belongs to the abstract

intellect, aesthetic

'

proportion

'

is a

preference in

bodilysensation.

Here,too,arelawsandratios,but

of adifferentgeometry.

And therecan benosure

criticism of architecture till we have

learnt the

geometryoftaste.

Mass, Space, Line,

and Coherence constitute, in

architecture,

the fourgreat provinces

of thatgeo-

metry. Whenithassatisfiedscience

with

'

firmness,'

andcommon use with

its commodity,

architecture,

becoming art, achieves,

through these

four means,

the

last

'

condition of well-building

'

—^its

'

delight.'

By thedirect agencyof

Massand Space,

Line and

Coherence upon our

physical

consciousness, archi-

tecture communicates its

value asan art.

These

arethe irreducible

elementsofits

aestheticmethod.